The Chesapeake Bay Interpretive Buoy System: Recent expansion and advances

The Chesapeake Bay Interpretive Buoy System (CBIBS) is an innovative system to collect, transmit and interpret real-time environmental data from the Chesapeake Bay to a wide variety of constituents - including scientists, on-the-water users, educators, and natural resource decision-makers - and to fill critical observational gaps in the Chesapeake Bay. The first buoy was deployed in May 2007, and as of October 2009, the CBIBS has expanded to eight buoys. Locations span the length of the bay, from the Susquehanna River to Norfolk, and include open water and tributaries. In addition to collecting environmental information, the System supports educational and informational tools to interpret the Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail. Buoys are based on an AXYS Watchkeeper platform, with buoys in the initial system measuring weather, wind, waves, current profiles, and basic water quality parameters. Data are reported in real time via a comprehensive web site that includes not only data access and presentations but also buoy data-based educational curricula and historical, geographic, and ecological information associated with the buoy's location and environs. In addition to basic data products, there is an option for data delivery via mobile device, and access to informational audio tracks. These tracks, as well as audio access to data, are also available via the 877-BUOYBAY phone service. Subsequently sensors have been deployed to measure in situ nitrate and phosphate, as well as water level via GPS in collaboration with the NOAA National Geodetic Service. A ninth CBIBS buoy is scheduled for deployment later in 2009 on an artificial fishing reef; it will collect and transmit acoustic fishfinder images for remote presentation over the internet as well as collect and transmit bottom water quality data from the reef. There have also been recent data analyses and validation experiments with buoy data to establish their accuracy and develop maintenance schedules. Examples of these are presented for currents, waves, nutrients, and dissolved oxygen measurements. The new enhancements additional sensors and products, and data validation broaden the utility of system components for both observational and interpretive purposes, and contribute to the already strong community-based support for the system in the Chesapeake Bay. The support has led to the development of partnerships to contribute buoys to the system; a siting plan exists for a built out twenty buoy system. The system is a significant part of regional efforts to develop a new Chesapeake Bay Observing system based on U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) principles.